Understanding Reading

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Understanding Reading

Understanding Reading revolutionized reading research and theory when the first edition appeared in 1971 and continues to be a leader in the field. In the sixth edition of this classic text, Smith's purpose remains the same: to shed light on fundamental aspects of the complex human act of reading--linguistic, physiological, psychological, and social--and on what is involved in learning to read. The text critically examines current theories, instructional practices, and controversies, covering a wide range of disciplines but always remaining accessible to students and classroom teachers. Careful attention is given to the ideological clash that continues between whole language and direct instruction and currently permeates every aspect of theory and research into reading and reading instruction. To aid readers in making up their own minds, each chapter concludes with a brief statement of "Issues." Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read, Sixth Edition is designed to serve as a handbook for language arts teachers, a college text for basic courses on the psychology of reading, a guide to relevant research on reading, and an introduction to reading as an aspect of thinking and learning. It is matchless in integrating a wide range of topics relative to reading while, at the same time, being highly readable and user-friendly for instructors, students, and practitioners.
Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension

The ultimate aim of reading is not the process but to understand what we read and comprehension can take place at many different levels. There has been an increasing emphasis on the importance of reading comprehension in recent years but despite this there is very little written on this vital topic accessible to trainee and practicing teachers. The Handbook of Reading Comprehension presents an overview of recent findings on reading comprehension and comprehension problems in children. It provides a detailed examination of the characteristics of children who have reading comprehension difficulties, and examines ways in which comprehension can be supported and improved. It is accessibly written for students and professionals with no previous background in the psychology of reading or reading problems. This indispensable handbook asks the question ‘what is comprehension?’ The authors consider comprehension of different units of language: understanding single words, sentences, and connected prose and outline what readers (and listeners) have to do to successfully understand an extended text. This book also considers comprehension for different purposes, in particular reading for pleasure and reading to learn and explores how reader characteristics such as interest and motivation can influence the comprehension process. Different skills contribute to successful reading comprehension. These include word reading ability, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic skills, memory, and discourse level skills such as the ability to make inferences, knowledge about text structure, and metacognitive skills. The authors discuss how each one contributes to the development of reading comprehension skill and how the development of these skills (or their precursors) in pre-readers, provides the foundation for reading comprehension development. Areas covered include:- Word reading and comprehension Development of comprehension skills Comprehension difficulties Assessment Teaching for improvement Throughout the text successful experimental and classroom based interventions will be highlighted, practical tips for teachers and summary boxes detailing key points and explaining technical terms will be included in each chapter
Understanding Reading Comprehension

Can baboons read? That is the thought-provoking question that opens this wonderfully accessible book for trainee and practising primary school teachers to fully understand the process of reading comprehension. Comprehension is an essential component of learning to read and a successful teacher of reading will have a portfolio of different strategies and approaches that take in to account that children learn to read in different ways. This book supports the development of student and practising teachers’ subject knowledge by providing detailed guidance in to the reading comprehension process, along with practical strategies and lesson ideas for use in the classroom. Drawing from educational and psychological research, coverage includes: School-based activities in every chapter An in-depth focus on the inference making process The role of vocabulary and syntax in comprehension Cognitive and meta-cognitive processes including the use of memory Advice on developing effective classroom talk with different groups of children Using different text genres and selecting texts